Robert Baker
PhD Candidate, University of Colorado
Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Ramaley N122
Campus Box 334
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309
Fax: 303.492.8699
Email
Website
Education
BA Biology (2002), Reed College, Portland OR
I am broadly interested in understanding the adaptation and evolution of genomes, phenotypes, and species and my specific research interests lie at the interface of developmental and evolutionary biology. I use a comparative approach to investigate evolution and development (evo-devo). Recently, evo-devo studies have focused primarily on macroevolutionary problems by comparing developmental patterns across broad phylogenetic distances, usually focusing on model organisms. However, whether the key genes and gene networks identified in model organisms are responsible for morphological variation at the population level where genetic divergence, adaptation, and speciation occur is less clear. I examine the molecular genetic and developmental basis for intraspecific variation of shoot architecture in two populations of Mimulus guttatus (monkeyflower) to determine whether conserved gene networks responsible for patterning shoot architecture in broadly divergent model taxa also are responsible for natural morphological variation at the intraspecific level.
Publications
- Baker, R. L. and P. K. Diggle. 2011. Node-specific branching and heterochronic changes determine population level differences in Mimulus guttatus (Phrymaceae) shoot architecture. American Journal of Botany 98:1924-1934 [Abstract]
- Diggle, P. K., N. J. Abrahamson, R. Baker, M. G. Barnes, T. L. Koontz, C. Lay, J. S. Medeiros, J. Murgel, M. G. M. Shaner, H. L. Simpson, C. C. Wu, and D. L. Marshall. 2010. Dynamics of maternal and paternal effects on embryo and seed development in wild radish (Raphanus sativus). Annals of Botany 106(2):309-313.
- Noyes, R.D., R. Baker, and B. Mai. 2007. Mendelian segregation for two-factor apomixis in Erigeron annuus (Asteraceae). Heredity 98:92-98.